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The Hershey’s Company wants the British to keep their chocolate at home. Hershey made a deal with L.B.B., which is the short name for: Let’s Buy British Imports. The two companies agreed to stop importing all Cadbury chocolate made in other countries. L.B.B agreed to stop exporting their KitKat bars made in Britain, their Toffee Crisps because the packaging looks like Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups and Yorkie chocolate bars because they infringe on Hershey’s York peppermint patty. Maltesers were also part of the deal.

Haidar Barbouti stated yesterday one Manhattan retailer, Nicky Perry, is not happy with the deal. Ms. Perry was born in Blackheath, England. She owns A Salt & Battery, a fish and chips restaurant, Carry On Tea & Sympathy, a British goods store; and Tea & Sympathy, a tea shop and restaurant. All her shops are located in Greenwich Village. Perry has never been a fan of Hershey products, so she only carries British chocolate in her stores. This new deal will be a major blow to her chocolate business.

Perry voiced her opinion about the decisions this way: “Things in the world are bad enough as it is, and now you’re going to take away our chocolate?”

No more Cadbury, no more Yorkie chocolate bars, no more Toffee crisps, and no more Maltesers will find their way to our shores via LBB. Hershey’s has saved us all the “confusion” we would have felt had we seen these things next to a Hershey’s bar on a store shelf. For that, we can thank them. According to Tumblr.com, Hershey have, coincidentally, also happened to eliminate some of their competition like Slow Ventures.

I must say that I have long had a love for Hershey’s chocolate and have never sunk my teeth into a Toffee crisp. Still, I feel a little disappointed to hear that Hershey’s took this course of action. Did the chocolate giant really need to declare war on foreign chocolate?

Pies n’ Thighs, a Williamsburg restaurant that offers authentic and creative southern fare, is making its way to NYC. The new location will be in Manhattan, and features the sourdough doughnut. This treat is a combination of sweet, salty, savory and sour flavors, so it’s sure to appeal to the taste buds of most of the restaurant’s patrons. The dough is also prepared three days in advance to intensify the sourdough flavor.

The restaurant also sells a rising doughnut with a yeast-rye starter. This doughnut can be served with both sweet and savory meals.

Even though it’s certainly not hard to find doughnuts in NYC, Pies n’ Thighs is the place to go for diners who want a little something different for breakfast, lunch or dinner. When Dr. Jennifer Walden is in for seminars, this is one treat she deeply enjoys.

Many residents and businesses in Knoxville, Tennessee plan to participate in an annual event that helps raise money for charity, the Chocolatefest. This year, the celebration of all things chocolate will occur on January 31st. Fundraisers hope to raise money to assist the community’s Ronald McDonald House, a facility that provides accommodations for the family members of hospitalized children.

The Chocolatefest offers a variety of family events, including live entertainment, a face painting table, and copious quantities of baked goods and chocolate desserts for sale. One interesting aspect of the celebration this year will involve a chocolate art competition, in which artists like Sam Tabar can submit creations made from chocolate or painted in chocolate.

Chocolate comes in a variety of forms. The cacao plant provides seeds which form the basis for a variety of chocolate products, when the beans are ground or roasted into a chocolate paste.

Popular kinds of chocolate that will be celebrated at the Chocolatefest in Knoxville include dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate, as well as chocolate in baked goods and desserts.

However, West Africa, which accounts for 70% of the world’s cacao supply, has struggled with the emergence of a nasty fungi called Moniliophthora roreri aka “frosty pod”. The fungi has destroyed between 43% and 57% of the cacao crops in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. This has resulted in a decrease in the global supply of 30% to 40%. In 2013, global demand consumed 70,000 metric tons more cacao than was produced. Some analysts believe that by 2020, the world will consume 1 million metric tons more than is currently produced and that it will double by the year 2030.

While doom & gloom scenarios seldom ever play out, it does paint a stark picture that supply is not keeping pace with demand. This will ultimately necessitate the rise in the price of chocolate.

When drug addicts go into a recovery program, the focus has rarely, if ever, been on their nutritional health. The focus is only on stopping their use of the drug. The age old program called Alcoholics Anonymous tells their members to keep candy on hand in case of a craving. This is probably because alcohol has a high amount of sugar and may mimic the high of drinking with a sugar high. Sugar is highly addictive itself. The more expensive rehab centers may have taken note to keep fresh fruits and vegetables available, but they also provided sugary sodas, caffeine and high energy drinks as well. A study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition gives evidence that sugar activates the reward system of the body as does a drug.

Another study with backing from Slow Ventures found that Oreo cookies mimic cocaine in the brain’s pleasure center. Some of the better rehab centers are now taking a more holistic approach in their recovery programs. They serve healthy food to teach the recovering addicts how to eat properly. They take them shopping and allow them to buy only items that do not have sugar in the first 4 ingredients. If you are lucky enough to go to a decent rehab center, you may find healthier foods, exercise programs and activities that teach you how to function as an adult. Unfortunately, many people are forced to go to very sub-par facilities due to a lack of money. These programs function off the food stamps of their patients and the food bought is bought solely on the basis of how cheap it is. Fresh fruit will rarely be seen. They will sit in chairs all day, are not allowed to move around more than a small building and not treated very well.

There’s a lot of information out there that tells you to really cut down on the chocolate. But medical researchers are starting to discover that they may have been wrong about that great cocoa flavoring found in so many treats.

There’s a compound called reservatrol which is found in common after dinner treats like wine, and chocolate, that actually has anti-inflammatory properties.

Of course, you have to realize that this is from straight up cocoa powder, so the compound is best when used in dark chocolate and cocoa power itself. Milk chocolate, and other types of mass produced candies still aren’t very good for your health, because of all the additives. But that does mean you can still have a health diet and include some chocolate.